On July 10, 2026, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown led a coalition of 15 attorneys general challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s latest attempt to terminate federal funding that helps schools recruit and train mental health professionals. In 2018, following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Congress established and funded the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program (MHSP) to address a shortage of mental health professionals in high-need public schools. Two years later, Congress expanded these efforts with the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program (SBMH), which provided funding to help schools hire, train, and retain school-based mental health staff. In the wake of the devastating 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Congress dramatically increased funding for both programs, appropriating more than $100 million annually to each program through 2026. Each program was designed as a five-year initiative, with the goal of placing 14,000 new mental health professionals in schools, particularly those in low-income and rural areas, where students often face greater barriers to accessing mental health care. 

Despite the successes of these programs, the Education Department abruptly moved in 2025 to discontinue more than $1 billion in funding for these programs, claiming that certain grants conflicted with the administration’s priorities because they supported diversity, equity, and inclusion. `In December 2025, the coalition secured an order declaring that the department’s discontinuations were unlawful and requiring it to make new continuation decisions. The court also issued a permanent injunction that prohibited the department from implementing the discontinuations “through any means.” 

While admitting that most of the grants should have been continued, the Department of Education nevertheless only awarded grantees six months of funding instead of providing funding for the full year, as is standard practice, and forced grantees to jump through unnecessary hoops to access funds. Subsequently, the Education Department announced that it plans to “terminate” some or all of the same protected grants as early as July 31, 2026. The administration claims it can do so because the coalition’s injunction blocked “discontinuities,” and they now plan to “terminate” the grants at issue. The coalition argues that the Education Department cannot circumvent the court’s order by changing the word “discontinue” to “terminate.” In their lawsuit, the attorneys general write, “though the precise mechanism by which the Department plans to end the protected grants may have changed, its illegality has not.”  

Terminating these grants would result in the loss of millions of dollars in mental health services to elementary and secondary school students in coalition states.  

The coalition argues that the Education Department’s latest effort exceeds its legal authority, and threatens funding that schools use to provide mental health services for students. The attorneys general have moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent the grants from being terminated. 

On July 27, 2026, the court granted a temporary restraining order, blocking the Trump administration from terminating the grants supporting school-based mental health services.  

This administration already tried to take money from our schools, money that was supposed to support student mental health, and they lost. Now they’re trying using a new tactic to try for the same goal–getting around the court’s order and Congress’s intent. Our goal is the same too: fighting for and defending the well-being of Washington’s kids.Attorney General Nick Brown